Go to hell

Indian media had big plans to splurge printing ink, advertisers' money, precious electricity and our time for another month or so in the name of cricket. Alas! Indian team put a spanner in the works.

But media are fighting back.

Now, they want to poll cricket fans on various issues afflicting Indian cricket. Just like exit polls during elections, you have plethora of cricket polls.... Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Dalmia, Pawar, Vengsarkar, Sandip Patil, Wright, Sidhu, Jadeja, Yuvraj Singh etc etc.

No one has called me so far. But if they do.............

Artist: Robert J. Day The New Yorker 19 Feb 1938

"One billion people, yes. But how many human beings?”

During last several weeks, I often heard: “A billion people are praying for India’s success at world cup cricket.”
In the past, I may have let it pass. Not so this time. (Thankfully I have still not heard: Two billion eyes are watching cricket).

Neither my wife nor I were praying.

Since our maid- Sunita- who was borne in Pune district and has been living in Pune city since her marriage (much before she turned 18!)- is also part of that billion, I asked her if she prayed for such a cause.

Her response was startling: “Dajee, what is cricket?”

Sunita’s husband – an able bodied male- refuses to work. She has two kids. She has no electricity at home. Her kids attend private school because she thinks subsidized public schools are rotten and are bad influence on her children. With her meager income, Sunita looks after family of five including her old father-in-law. Her dwelling in nearby slum is registered in the name of her father-in-law. If he were to die, Sunita is not sure about her fate because her relations with husband are so soured that she refuses to sleep with him.

If at all Sunita prays, it is for longevity of her father-in-law.

I think we neo-rich and our media are just getting carried away. Let us remember that in this land there are still more Sunita’s than us.

“One billion people, yes. But how many human beings?”
Artist : William O'Brian The New Yorker 14 Nov 1964

Corporates beware! Consumers are fighting back

My irritation with our service providers is increasing by the day.

During last several months of 2006-07, I have been pissed off by ICICI Bank, Books Today (India Today group), Reliance Communications, Standard Chartered Bank, DSK Developers, Birla Mutual Fund, HDFC Mutual Fund, local cable guy and so on.

Mind you issues involved are not minor irritants.

It has become so bad that I have come around to think that perhaps government in India is less irritating than the private sector.

But companies perhaps think I am their best customer because I continue to do business with them!

ELEANOR RANDOLPH writes in NYT March 11, 2007 "A Time and Place for Grousing":

"In today’s global economy, however, there is a totally different culture for complaints. Artful bellyaching has become a survival skill. And, the harder it becomes to complain (“You’re talking to me from Tajikistan?”) and the longer it takes to get satisfaction, the angrier customers become in return. American consumers are so angry that companies are assessing the new level of customer rage. A study by Arizona State University found that 70 per cent of customers who had problems were either extremely or very teed-off as a result of their complaints. Scott Broetzmann, president of Customer Care Measurement and Consulting, which helped with the university analysis, said, “You have to go back more than 40 years (i.e., Ralph Nader’s heyday) to find the acrimony you now have between consumers and businesses.” Although there are many companies that care deeply about customer service, too many consider the consumer complaints desk to be a cost center worthy of cutting. So, consumers are fighting back. Mr. Broetzmann, who helps businesses deal with consumer outrage, says that customers become angrier with every hour spent trying to get relief. (Four hours is the average.) But he also says that many consumers say they would be satisfied with respect or an apology rather than, for example, a replacement iPod."

Artist : James Stevenson The New Yorker 23 Jan 1960

Indian Growth Story is Consumption driven

Local stock market pundits often talk about this. Indian growth story is based on local consumption and not based as much on export as say China.

I was brought up in an era of shortages. Shortages of all kinds. Cement, Kerosene, Rice, Sugar, Tires, what-have-you. We were taught frugality. Conspicuous consumption was crime. Leaving food on plate was crime. Eating in restaurant was crime. Too many clothes. And so on........

Now, there is a new spin on all this.

Consume more to help the economy. Consume more to generate jobs.

Therefore, every time anything is robbed in front of us, our only hope is: Not that criminals will be brought to the justice but loot will be spent locally!

Artist : Richard Decker The New Yorker 2 May 1959

If you can't beat them.......

There is this famous Americanism: If you can’t beat them, join them.

We practise it many times. Once we become insiders, we change our colours.

But you may be exasperated if you can do neither.

Artist : Richard Decker The New Yorker 21 December 1957

Crummy Childhood

Graham Greene:

“Everything that can happen to a person, I think, is determined in the first sixteen years of his life”

Therefore, she is right. He got to write about what he knows best. His first sixteen years- crummy childhood!

Artist : Richard Decker The New Yorker

Feeling a draft

Happiness is elusive.

"Happiness eludes the rendezvous we fix, arrives when we least expect it, disappears when we think we have it in hand. In other words, those people who are unhappy about not being happy forget that happiness has a knack for indirection, coming in the middle of the most ordinary day or disappearing at the height of one’s career. It is a matter of luck, almost of grace, a visitor who enters the house unexpectedly and vanishes on tiptoe." ("Another Last Chance to Change Your Life" By PASCAL BRUCKNER, NYT Jan 1 2007)

Poet Jacques Prévert says: "I recognize happiness by the sound it makes when it leaves".

My wife's aunt, a wealthy doctor in US, says what she misses most in US is the draft dry lands of India get on a summer evening. Whenever I have lived outside western Maharashtra- Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Doom Dooma (Assam), Calcutta- I too have missed it dearly.

Coming in the middle of the most ordinary day, bringing along happiness and .............

Artist : Richard Decker Publication: The New Yorker 22 November 1958

The crowd loves a good loser. Does it?

India may or may not progress any further in the world cup after losing to Sri Lanka.

However, frenzy among Indian cricket followers and media before, during and after India's matches is quite scary. All in the name of the nation. Thank our luck there is no actual war being fought with Pakistan or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka.

I am increasingly thinking that rise of nationalism may be the biggest problem of this century on Indian subcontinent. Ahead of poverty.

I wonder if we can ever solve problems of river water sharing among Indian states in such a charged atmosphere.
Artist: Richard Decker The New Yorker 26 Feb 1955

shouting from the left and the right as if this were real news and real information

I think media is getting a bigger problem by the day. Electronic media is the worst. Print media is close second.

Much celebrated hero-reporter of "Watergate" scandal Carl Bernstein (played by DUSTIN HOFFMAN in "All the President's Men" ) has this to say (Feb 2006) :

"But I think the really important trends in journalism in the last 25 years are basically the dumbing down of media what I called in a cover piece for The New Republic in 1990 the triumph of idiot culture, manufactured controversy, sensationalism, shouting from the left and the right as if this were real news and real information.In this cacophony truth, the best obtainable version of the truth, which is really what reporting is that snapshot at a given moment of where an event and the facts stand when reporting is good that's getting lost in this noise and, as Bob says, in this rush to get stuff out. Who the hell knows what's right and what's right and what's fact and what's context and what's not? And if you -- it's particularly egregious on television with all due respect and on the Internet."
Artist : Garrett Price The New Yorker 15 Dec 1945

a star to stay our minds on- Chekov

Vijay Padalkar- scholar of Chekov's work and author of much acclaimed Marathi book 'kavadase pakadanaara kalaavant' - tells me:
'
Robert Frost wrote in one of his poems;

"We may choose something like a star/To stay our minds on and be staid"

I have chosen Chekov.'

He is not alone.

Artist : Sidney Harris Publication: The New Yorker 8 April 1985